The Dutch Central Government Real Estate Agency has provisionally awarded R Creators as the selected bidder for the PPP project government office building ‘de Knoop Utrecht’. The former Knoop barracks in Utrecht will be redeveloped into an efficient and attractive government office building including a meeting centre and guest workplaces. The final award is scheduled for 23 June 2015.

Sustainable partnership and hospitality

The criteria of sustainable partnership and hospitality were added to the usual award criteria for buildings. The sustainability focus for the ‘de Knoop’ office buildings will not only be on reduction of energy consumption and use of materials, but also on maximum flexibility to make the building and services future-proof.

Compact civil service

The Dutch government is working towards a compact civil service, which has consequences for the government buildings. The new ‘de Knoop’ office will fit in this development. The office will serve as a multifunctional office building suitable for several government organisations. Considerable savings in the government accommodation will be reached through the realisation of the ‘de Knoop’ office. Social developments lead to a change of the work of public officials, leading to the need for a different working environment. De Knoop will support working independently of location and time and offers facilities for meeting, networking and working together. The ‘de Knoop’ building will above all offer a healthy, comfortable and safe working environment.

The Utrecht Central Station area in which the former Knoop barracks are located, is part of the Utrecht master plan for renewal of the city centre (CU 2030).

Public Private Partnership (PPP)

The tender made by R Creators according to the European rules on tendering was judged to be the most economically advantageous tender based on quality aspects after intensive evaluations. The ‘de Knoop’ government office will be designed, built and maintained through a public-private partnership (PPP) with a DBFMO contract amounting to a net present value of more than 100 million Euros. This means that R Creators will be responsible for the design, build, finance and maintenance of the new building, and part of the facility services. The contract includes an exploitation phase of 20 years. The ‘de Knoop’ government office will open its doors in the spring of 2018.

Consortium

The contractor will be R Creators B.V. including the shareholders Strukton Integrale Projecten (80%) and Facilicom PPS Contracten (20%). The performing parties of R Creators are Strukton Worksphere, Ballast Nedam and Facilicom Bedrijfsdiensten. The design offered by the R Creators consortium was created by the architects Cepezed (building), Fokkema & Partners (interior) and Rijnboutt (urban integration).